Advertising Programs
In general I recommend trying AdSense (https://adsense.google.com/start/). It’s a bit of a hit and miss with Google AdSense, as they don’t always immediately accept all sites, and sometimes require a site to be a few months old.
Some Google AdSense alternatives are:
- Media.net (https://Media.net)
- Ezoic (https://www.ezoic.com/),
- AdMaven (https://ad-maven.com/publishers)
More alternatives:
As keeping track of all the ad programs can be time consuming, I usually follow this list here. Its an extended list of advertising programs which you can sign up with. https://monetizepros.com/ad-network-reviews/
Blacklist
I would not recommend to use PropellerAds or AdSterra. From personal experience I can confirm that they promote malware, using scam ads and redirects to make visitors of your website fall for scams.
Affiliate Programs
Shopify also keeps an up to date list of Affiliate Programs: https://www.shopify.com/ie/blog/affiliate-networks
Affiliate programs differ from advertising programs, as with most affiliate programs you’re usually in charge of looking through their marketplace to find a product you want to promote on your website. Each time a sale occurs through the ad on your site, you either get a fixed fee or a percentage of the sale.
Make sure to check the requirements of each ad program, as some require your website to have existing traffic and/or unique content. When signing up with these ad networks, and they ask if you are a Publisher or Advertiser, select Publisher. This means you are a website owner and you want to Publish ads on your website to earn money.
Amazon affiliate program is one of the ad programs that does not have any requirements and you will be able to sign up instantly. https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
Google AdSense
Google AdSense is the most popular one, but they don’t accept everyone into their program. Google AdSense is a PPC (Pay Per Click) network, which means you earn money each time a visitor clicks on an ad. It can be anywhere from $0.05 up to $3.00. (realistic average is around $0.20 per click).
Amazon affiliate
Amazon affiliate program is a PPA (pay per acquisition) ad network. They pay you a 4% – 12% commission on every sale that occurs via your amazon ad. If a visitor clicks on your Amazon ad, and then purchases a laptop on Amazon for $250, you get paid $25.
The good thing is, even if the visitor doesn’t buy the item straight away, but makes a purchase on Amazon the next day, or the visitor ends up buying something completely else or even buys multiple items, you will still get the full commission on all the products your visitor will purchase in the next 24 hours.
Recommendation
My personal recommendation is to start with Amazon and Google AdSense. Keep in mind, I have no control over the decision of Google AdSense, for that reason I cannot guarantee that your website will get accepted. Most of my own websites did get accepted by Google AdSense. If you do not get accepted the first time around, you can always make some changes and then apply again. The easiest way to get accepted by Google AdSense is to add 10 – 20 unique articles to your website, each with at least 1 image and 300 – 500 words. Then wait a few weeks and apply for a Google AdSense account again.